DIV. n 



ANGIOSPERMAE 



679 



summer or autumn bear the flowers. The leaves of the creeping or climbing plagio- 

 tropous shoots are lobed and usually have shorter stalks. Calyx with five pointed 

 sepals corresponding to the five ribs on the inferior ovary. The corolla is 

 greenish in tint ; the large disc on the upper surface of the ovary attracts the 

 visits of flies and bees. The fruits ripen during the winter and become blackish- 

 blue berries ; these are eaten by birds and 

 in this way the seeds are distributed. 



Family 3. Umbelliferae. 

 Herbaceous plants sometimes of 

 large size. The stem, which has 

 hollow internodes and enlarged 

 nodes, bears alternate leaves ; these 

 completely encircle the stem with 

 their sheathing base, which is often 

 of large size. The leaves are only 

 rarely simple ; usually they are 

 highly compound. Inflorescence 

 terminal, frequently overtopped by 

 the next younger lateral shoot. It 

 is an umbel, or more frequently a 

 compound umbel, the bracts forming 

 the involucre and partial in- 

 volucres, or an involucre may be 

 wanting. Flowers white, greenish, 

 or yellow ; other colours are rare. 

 K 5, C 5, A 5, G (2). The sepals 

 are usually represented by short 

 teeth. The flowers at the circum- 

 ference of the compound umbel 

 sometimes become zygomorphic by 

 the enlargement of the outwardly FlG m ._ CftrHW OTrri ( , nat . size) . In . 



directed petals. Ovary always bi- florescence bearing fruits. Single flower, 



carpellary and bilocular; in each 

 loculus a single ovule which hangs 

 from the median septum with its micropyle directed upwards and 

 outwards. The upper surface of the carpels is occupied by a swollen, 

 nectar -secreting disc continuing into the longer or shorter styles, 

 which terminate in spherical stigmas. Fruit a schizocarp, splitting 

 in the plane of the septum into two partial fruits or mericarps. In 

 many cases the latter remain for a time attached to the carpophore, 

 which originates from the central portion of the septum ; this separates 

 from the rest of the septum and bears the mericarps hanging from its 

 upper forked end (Figs. 722-728). 



The main areas of distribution of the Umbelliferae are the 

 steppe region of Western Asia, Central North America, Chile, and 

 Australia. 



2X1 



and carpophore bearing the mericarps 

 (enlarged). OFFICIAL. 



